1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for the continuation treatment of textiles in strip form. Such treatment includes dehumidification, drying, stablising and other heat treatments and may be applied to textile materials and fabrics of wool, wool mixtures, cotton, cotton mixtures, fibre felts and the like.
2. Prior Art
A large number of fabric finishing processes are carried out in aqueous media, others in the dry state. To remove the treatment water or moisture from the products there have been proposed a multiplicity of machines and drying methods.
In one such method known as continuous dehumidification either the squeezing pressure or calender rolls or the suction air of suction extractors is used to remove dripping water and for the partial removal of wetting water.
Devices of this type for the removal of water achieve in the most favourable cases a residual moisture content of 60 to 70%, so that the drying machines which follow in the system still have to remove, typically 45 to 55% residual moisture.
A further drawback of such water-extraction devices, particularly those that use mechanical squeezing by means of calender rolls, is that the product is exposed to a relatively high elongation stress and therefore these devices are not suitable for elongation-sensitive materials or structured fabrics.